A flick of the wrist, the front of the line

A day in the life of Neil Crone

Celia Klemenz / Metroland

PORT PERRY -- A day in the life of Neil Crone, actor, writer and comic. Mr. Crone having brewed up a super-size latte, enjoyed the most important part of his day, time spent meditating and grounding on his back deck, shared with his dog, Owen. August 8, 2013

I took my boys to Canada’s Wonderland yesterday. It was our first trip back in a little over a decade. A lot can change in 10 years -- and a lot of things remain the same.

For starters, I must’ve had much more patience 10 years ago and perhaps a lot less money. The boys were little then and their mom and I were happy to wait in long lineups to get on their favourite rides. I suppose their lovely, youthful exuberance carried us through the experience.

This time around the thought of wasting even 15 precious minutes waiting in line seemed completely unpalatable to me. I must have had a lot more common sense 10 years ago too, as, on this go-round, I happily took a second mortgage on my home and, without even blinking, purchased several ‘Fast Lane’ passes; innocuous-looking wristbands that have the amazing ability to whisk you past the perspiring, ragged throngs in steerage and directly to the front of the line.

I’m embarrassed to tell you what I paid for these things but, believe me, they were worth every blessed penny. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen some of the lineups in this park but they make the Bataan Death March look like a sack race. I remember, on one of my firsts visits, seeing a sign posted along the kilometres of aluminum handrails that form a kind of human cattle chute for each ride, that read ‘Two Hour wait from this point’. I’ve always felt there should been a little parenthetical addendum below those words. Something like ‘Don’t you feel stupid?’

At any rate, queue-jumping past hundreds of irate people, who have been standing for hours in 40-degree humidity, takes some getting used to. Despite ‘being on TV’ for a living, my career as a Canadian actor has never afforded me anywhere close to what one might call an affluent lifestyle.

Neither I, nor my children, have any real experience in walking in the shoes of a Gatsby or Rockefeller. And, as I’ve mentioned, just to pay for these wristbands, I had to indenture both of my kids to work as labourers at the park for the next 25 years. Suffice it to say, our first few runs up that gauntlet were guilt-filled, angst-ridden passages. With every step we could feel the hollow, ride-hungry eyes of the great un-wristbanded masses burning holes in our privileged backs. Faces forward, we hurried along, murmurs of discontent and dark promises of revenge trailing in the humidity behind us.

Still, as remorseful as we felt, there is a surprisingly anesthetic quality to repeatedly and freely going to the front of the line. One gets used to it rather quickly. I’m a little ashamed to admit that after an hour or two of this kind of flagrant class-ism, I found myself seeing eye to eye with people like Marie Antoinette and Tsar Nicholas. And of course, one’s perspective shifts -- and not always in the best of directions. I remember throwing what can only be described as a hissy fit when, with bladder bursting, I discovered that my magic wristband afforded me no advantage whatsoever in getting to a urinal.

Likewise were we brought back to earth upon leaving the park. It has been said that death is the great equalizer. I would argue that traffic gets us first. Once outside the gates our wristbands were as useless as holy water at a Metallica concert. In the car there was no racing to the front of the line. Only slowly crawling, carbon-spewing vehicles and the grinning faces of those we had passed earlier in the day. Some things never change.

-- Durham resident Neil Crone, comic, actor, writer, saves some of his best lines for this column.